The Reading Room contributions:

This report presents the reflections and findings of a group of young professionals and students – the Danube Foundation – who have been in search for shared stories of Europe. Their projectUtopia: European Vistas has been supported by ECF.

Protesting is considered a very European thing to do. … But European strikes are almost always about money. … But meanwhile in a little known corner of Europe there is a less mercenary struggle taking place – one that is closer to the spirit of Tahrir Square than Syntagma Square.

In this essay, Paul Scheffer discusses the waning of the European powers at the expense of new economies like Brazil, India, and China, and raises the question how Europe manages to deal with this change. He argues the perception of Europe in the new economies will acquire ever greater significance for European societies. This, according to Scheffer, presents an invitation to write history in a new way.

More and more museums all over Europe have been discovering migration as a topic for temporary exhibitions. In this essay (PDF), Kerstin Poehls discusses how and why this movement of people is being showcased in one of the most immobile but nonetheless influential cultural institutions Europe has produced. She also shows that exhibitions on migration tell several stories at once.

Problems such as unemployment, low salaries, loss of economic competitiveness, social tensions let to the definition of this period as the one of a new depression, part of a broader structural change in the world ́s balance of power. These trends were representative of change in Western societies, that seemed to reach the limits of their development and dynamism, which was being expressed by popular protests and the loss of international projection.

What role do immigrants play in the construction of historical narratives within a uniting Europe? Can the cultural diversity spurred by immigration be included in new European narratives of diversity? What would such broadened historical pictures look like? In this essay (PDF), Rainer Ohliger provides some answers to these questions, which lay behind the project Migrants Moving History: European Narratives of Diversity.

"We need a recurring character”, someone said. “Like a protagonist”, someone else added. “A recognizable face to be seen in each comic”, a third clarified… In this column, Thijs van Nimwegen gives a lively description of the birth of the comic Osvald and its main protagonist: “He was made by dozens of artists, and his appearance, character, and personal traits are shifting even as we speak. Osvald may therefore represent a whole new generation of the inquisitive antihero – a fluid character, showing different traits, depending on the reader.”

"Europe itself never was and never will be a sealed-off ethnic unity but rather a deeply entrenched story of mass migration. We are all entangled within a history of genetic exchange that exceeds the boundaries of any region, nation or even continent."

Collecting European narratives is not an innocent cultural practice. Rather, it is a highly politicized normative practice to bolster a particular “European” position in the European “battlefield of memory".

Renée Jones-Bos took up her position as Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 1 July 2012. From 2008 to 2012 she was Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United States of America.

‘If you write about the incident, be sure to emphasise that you were robbed in Cologne, not in Brussels,’ she tells me…. – The entire mentality of the modern-day European Union is summed up in that one piece of ‘advice’.

"Both proponents and critics of a united Europe continue to employ clichés, trapping themselves in their respective trenches. It’s time to imagine Europe in new ways, to broaden the debate, and to come up with an original story. ECF’s four-day eventImagining Europe was a small but ambitious attempt in this direction."

"Europe needs each other in fresh ways, if not as friends then as visionary accomplices to redefine its unity in and with the world. Change is here, and we need to have the courage to call it what it is: a chance, and not a crisis."

What do comics have to do with the European project? In these essays, Jason Dittmer argues that graphic narrative is the ideal narrative for a Europe that seeks to emphasize its own outward-facing nature.

"In 1966, Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica wrote: “Museum is the world.” This phrase could be part of the definition of “universal museum,” a place where cultural assets produced in every area of the planet are preserved, studied and exhibited, in a wide temporal arch."

Stop complaining,’ said one man in his forties. ‘Create your new utopia. You will never succeed if you think the future in the same terms and models as the past. You have huge challenges? But also new instruments. Use the crisis for change. It is not their, it is your future!'"

Europe has seen centuries of migration and mixing of cultures. Here, we take on Max Frisch's quote: “Wir Riefen Arbeitskräfte und es Kamen Menschen.” /‘We called upon the labor force and the people came.’

Learn more about Windows into Protest, a project emerging from our Tandem network - our programme for cultural managers across the EU and beyond. It is a project in partnership with three countries where protest in many different forms has been taking place: Ukraine, Turkey and the UK.

Pedro Jiménez (ZEMOS98) has written about the most recent performance of €urovisions, an audiovisual show created and performed live by Karol Rakowski (Poland); Okaku Noriko (Japan / UK); Farah Rahman (Netherlands) and Malaventura (Spain); English support collective The Light Surgeons, with technical and artistic coordination of ZEMOS98. ECF presented €urovisions at EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam on 22 May 2014.

The summer months are a time for relaxation and reflection – a chance to explore new places and new ideas. With this in mind, we have compiled some recommended reading materials to accompany you on your journeys this summer – including articles and books from ECF’s own Library and some from our partners’ collections too. We hope you enjoy them.

As 2014 is coming to a close, it is an ideal time to be looking back at some of the rich and diverse content we were able to share with you through our library. See our selection of media, books, reports, comics and video, representing the breadth of activities we have undertaken in the past year.